c. 2008 Religion News Service

Rabbis’ call to boycott Olympics prompts backlash

(RNS) A rabbinic call for Jews to boycott the Olympic Games in China has spawned a backlash by major American Jewish organizations.

The petition, signed by 194 American rabbis from across the religious spectrum, cited as its basis “China’s support for the genocidal government of Sudan” the nation’s human rights record, its crackdown on Tibet and providing missiles to Iran and Syria. The letter was circulated to media and Jewish activists on April 30, Holocaust Memorial Day.

“Having endured the bitter experience of abandonment by our presumed allies during the Holocaust, we feel a particular obligation to speak out against injustice and persecution today,” the letter stated, citing Nazi Germany’s use of the 1936 Olympics to “distract attention from its persecution of the Jews,” it stated.

“We dare not permit today’s totalitarian regimes to achieve such victories.”

Since then, five American Jewish groups _ three of them Orthodox _ issued statements that called the rabbis’ letter counterproductive and said references to Nazi Germany were inappropriate.

The Anti-Defamation League, for example, stated that “China is a complicated society that is changing and opening up in many ways, and one simply cannot equate the Beijing Olympics with those games in Nazi Germany on the eve of the Holocaust.”

But the letter’s two initiators, Orthodox Rabbis Yitz Greenberg, the former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, and Haskel Lookstein of New York’s Kehilath Jeshurun, do not plan a counter-response.

Greenberg said the concerns of Jewish groups were valid, and said he’s not equating Nazi Germany with Beijing, although he said China is using the Olympics to spruce up its image, much like Germany did in 1936.

“For an individual Jew to go and enjoy the Olympics while this oppression is going on is unconscionable and wrong,” he said.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which represents the largest Jewish movement in America, also backed his signature on the letter.

“Genocide is always a Jewish issue,” he said. “Never again means never again. It doesn’t mean never again when it’s convenient.”

_ Rachel Pomerance

Top archbishop suggests ways to deal with abusive priests

NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) A top U.S. archbishop, recently named to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, said the panel of cardinals and bishops could help resolve a key issue in the clergy sex abuse scandal: how to remove priests from ministry who abused children decades ago.

Under the church’s Code of Canon Law, the statute of limitation for clergy sex abuse of minors expires 10 years after the victim’s 18th birthday. In older cases, a bishop can ask the Vatican to bypass that rule, but Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J., said he wants to explore ways for bishops to act in such matters without asking Rome.

One possibility for these older cases, Myers said, would be a canon law change that treats molestation and sexual abuse of minors more as an illness than as a violation requiring a penalty. That would allow a bishop to more easily deem these priests unfit for ministry, he said.

“We used to think of alcoholism as a moral failure, and now it’s pretty much considered an illness,” said Myers, 66. “I’m not saying that’s what will happen (with clergy sex abuse of minors), but it wouldn’t be impossible for us to move in that direction.

“If we can find a way to work it so we don’t have to apply (for removal) in each instance, but we can make the judgment locally, that would be better,” he said of bishops acting without making requests to the Vatican.

Last month, during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States, the New York Times reported that Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, suggested that church authorities are considering changing canon law on the statute of limitations regarding clergy sex abuse of minors.

David Clohessy, national director for the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, said he favored “anything that speeds up removing a predator from ministry,” but he cautioned that such a reliance on church procedures puts undeserved faith in bishops’ discretion.

What are needed, he said, are stronger civil and criminal statutes of limitation, which now vary from state to state.

_ Jeff Diamant

New Orleans parishoners vow to resist church closure plan

NEW ORLEANS (RNS) About two dozen parishioners from five Catholic parishes that are scheduled to be closed within the year conducted their first organizational meeting Wednesday (May 7) and emerged vowing to resist the closure plans.

“We are going forward, to keep our parishes viable and visible,” said Alden Hagardorn, an investment banker and member of St. Henry Parish in Uptown New Orleans.

St. Henry’s and neighboring Our Lady of Good Counsel weeks ago emerged as pockets of resistance to the archdiocese’s plans to close, merge or cluster 33 parishes following the damage of Hurricane Katrina.

But Wednesday’s meeting disclosed resistance among parishioners at three others as well: Blessed Sacrament, Uptown; St. Raymond, Gentilly; and St. Francis de Sales, Central City.

Parishioners from those five communities met for the first time in a former convent on the St. Henry’s property and adjourned after an hour to announce the formation of a group called N.O. Church Closings.

Hagardorn said in coming weeks the group expects to fashion a strategy that may include civil and canonical lawsuits to resist the closure of their parishes.

“Let the archdiocese know, we will not step back; we will not be stilled,” said Carol Boudy of St. Raymond. She said parishioners there believe they hold title to their property.

Sarah Comiskey, the archdiocese’s spokeswoman, said the church was aware of parishioners’ claims about their ownership of the land, but said the congregation “is part of the archdiocese and under the direction of the archbishop.

“We want to reassure parishioners that as parishes merge, net proceeds from the use or any future sale of parish properties will follow them to their newly formed parish,” she said.

Rhonda Bonds, a parishioner at Blessed Sacrament, voiced similar determination. That predominantly African-American parish was founded by St. Katharine Drexel as part of her decades of missionary work among blacks and Native Americans.

“A saint has walked through our church, and we will not let it close,” Bonds said.

_ Bruce Nolan

Quote of the Day: Margaret Sleczkowski of Framingham, Mass.

(RNS) “This shouldn’t be done to dead people. They can’t speak up.”

_ Margaret Sleczkowski of Framingham, Mass., reacting to a plan to erect a 100-foot cell phone tower on the edge of a church-owned Catholic cemetery. Some neighbors and families of the deceased oppose the tower. She was quoted by The Boston Globe.

KRE DS END RNS